Fan favorite Brooks assumes backup role in Rockets return

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He’s still Aaron Brooks, still wearing his Rockets uniform No. 0 and still playing at Toyota Center, where fans cheer every time he gets his hands on the ball.

But Aaron Brooks circa 2013 is in a considerably different position with the Rockets of today than he was in 2009.

Brooks Mach I was the cornerstone of general manager Daryl Morey’s master plan to rebuild the Rockets. He was Morey’s initial first-round draft choice in 2007, and he played a critical role on the Rockets’ most recent playoff team in 2009: it’s still part of the Toyota Center pregame highlight reel film.

This time around, Brooks, 28, is an insurance policy against eventualities like the chest injury suffered by Jeremy Lin in Game 2 of the Rockets-Thunder series. Brooks, a 6-0 guard, played four minutes, missed his only shot and had a turnover.

Brooks played in seven regular-season games for the Rockets after he reached a contract buyout agreement with the Kings and signed with the Rockets on March 5, averaging 1.4 points in five minutes per game.

Still, thanks to his accomplishments during his 2007-10 stint, he’s one of the most popular players on the team.

“It’s good to be loved,” Brooks said. “I appreciate the support. It’s a different feeling than I had been getting. Being in Sacramento, where they already had a fan favorite they wanted to play, being here is like a role reversal.”

Brooks is a direct link to the last time playoff fever rocked Toyota Center. In 2009, he scored 11 points in 27 seconds against Portland in a game the Rockets lost while winning the series in six games.

In the second round, with Yao Ming lost for the season with injuries, he scored 34 points in Game 4 of a series the Rockets lost to the Lakers in seven.

His memories are particularly appropriate for this series, given Lin’s injury woes and the season-ending injury suffered by Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook in Game 2.

“Just because you lose a player, it doesn’t make you a worse team,” he said. “It makes somebody step up. You don’t know who it’s going to be. It’s a chance for someone to step up and win a game.”

Brooks’ career has taken several twists since his big playoff moments. In the 2009-10 season, he became the sixth player in history to top 200 3-pointers with 400-plus assists in a season, and he was named the league’s most improved player, averaging 19.6 points per game.

His time in Houston ended after he suffered an ankle injury in November 2010 and was traded to the Suns for Goran Dragic and a first-round draft choice. He played in China in 2011-12 before returning to the U.S.

He said he doesn’t second-guess the detours in his career between his stints in Houston.

“I’m blessed,” he said. “You’ve got to keep things in perspective. My college career (at Oregon) didn’t go too well, so I’m blessed to be in the situation I’m in. I don’t look back to see what could have been. I look to the future and try to make it better.”

Brooks is being paid $2.4 million this season and has a team option for next season at $2.5 million.

“I want to go out and perform and show that I’ve still got it, and hopefully next year will be better,” he said.